THE ECLECTIC CLERIC - “It’s a New Day at First Parish!”

Which really isn’t saying much, when you stop to think about it. I mean, isn’t EVERY day pretty much a new day, no matter where you are? But notwithstanding my overly-zealous semantic literalism, there sure seems to be an awful lot of energy around First Parish these days, and even a newcomer like myself can notice it. An air of excitement and anticipation. With just a whiff of expectation and urgency. Great things are just around the corner. Assuming that the roof doesn’t fall in first.

We’ve typically been told from childhood that “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and “slow and steady wins the race,” or that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” So why do we have such a hard time believing it? Is it merely the accelerated pace of our 21st century lifestyles, and the desire for instant gratification cultivated by our consumer economy? Or is there a more fundamental inconsistency between our dreams and our means, and the fact that we generally tend to think a lot quicker than we can do?

Likewise, there is a vast landscape of possibility between “Perfection” and “Catastrophic Failure.” But at least if we know our desired destination, and can see it clearly in our mind’s eye, we are able, in the words of Thoreau, to “advance confidently in the direction of [our] dreams,” and “meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” By endeavoring to live the lives which we have imagined, we move beyond that “invisible boundary” after which “new, universal and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within” us, and we learn to measure our success according to the things we already do well (and can learn to do even better), or can easily learn to do without. “In proportion as you simplify your life,” Thoreau continues, “the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.” Or in the words of that old, familiar Unitarian hymn “The goal may ever shine afar; the will to win it makes us free.”

The passage I’ve been citing concludes with one of my all-time favorite quotes from Walden: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.” The discipline of building a solid foundation capable of supporting everything we imagine for our church isn’t nearly as exciting as the original act of imagination itself, but without that foundation we might as well just be daydreaming. Safely navigating the narrow path between Patience and Progress, Frustration and Persistence, Tedium and Tenacity, Desire and Commitment, may not always feel like the most rewarding journey on the planet. But ultimately it’s what makes the difference between wishful thinking and having dreams come true…………………………twj